The invention disclosed herein pertains to an improved yarn spinner that permits formation or spinning of yarn from fibers as is done with traditional wooden spinning wheels.
Wooden spinning wheels used in the home have an air of romanticism about them but they have never been optimized for operating convenience, nor for simplicity, or cost. Most if not all spinning wheels require a substantial amount of floor space to be dedicated to them and they are so large that most homes do not have accommodations for storing them off-the-floor and out of sight when not in use.
Prior art spinning wheels are usually driven by means of a foot treadle that operates a crank shaft which turns a fly wheel and a bobbin on which the spun yarn is wound. Since foot power is required, the traditional spinning wheel cannot be used by those who are physically weak, or paralyzed, or confined to a wheelchair; a class of people who might have a strong desire and, indeed, a need for the therapy and sense of accomplishment that can be achieved by personally spinning their own yarn. Moreover, even a healthy spinning enthusiast can become fatigued and prematurely bored due to the energy which must be expended on the treadle and to the relatively low output of yarn for the time and effort spent.
It should be noted too that traditional wooden spinning wheels are comprised of many parts that require considerable craftmanship to make and assemble them, such that the manufacturing cost and sale price are necessarily higher than they might be. There are many structural features in traditional spinning wheels that make their use slow and inconvenient. Generally, to insert or remove a bobbin, for example, requires unlatching or latching and turning some wooden member to permit the bobbin shaft to be positioned for removing or installing a bobbin. The wooden flyers that orbit around the bobbin for distributing the yarn over its length are usually provided with a series of axially spaced apart hooks and the incoming yarn is switched from hook to hook as spinning proceeds to distribute the yarn or prevent winding a lot of it at one place on the bobbin. In one prior art spinning wheel the flyer has a body having an eye slidable on it. The yarn is fed through the eye just before it goes onto the bobbin. The body has a set screw for clamping it to the flyer at various positions along the length of the flyer to obtain winding of the yarn at different places or in a distributed fashion on the bobbin. To switch the body from one position to another requires shutting down of the spinning operation for the time it takes to loosen the screw, shift the body to a new position and tighten the set screw again which slows down production and is tedious.
In spinning devices, the speed of the bobbin must be regulated relative to the speed at which the wheel is rotated to spin the yarn in order to get the proper tension on the yarn and thereby control the tightness to which it is wound on the bobbin. There are a variety of tensioners used in traditional wooden spinning wheels. One type has a wooden screw on which there is a projecting wood handle that must be turned to increase or decrease tension on the drive belt. In another type the tension on the drive belt is adjusted by loosening a wing nut on a clamp and grasping a handle and tipping the flyer assembly relative to the drive wheel and then retightening the wing nut. These are but two examples of tensioners that are inconvenient to use.